Chapter 16 Deterring Nonstate Actors The Challenge of al-Qaeda John Stone It has frequently been suggested over the last few years that the concept of deterrence has had its day, that its previously important position within Western strategy arose from the particular conditions of the Cold War, and that these conditions are no longer extant. According to this line of argument, the efficacy of deterrence rested on our capacity to punish Soviet aggression by destroying targets that Moscow dearly wished to preserve. This made Soviet cities a vital target set, for not only was Moscow loath to place them at risk, but they were also remarkably vulnerable to attack. Today, however, the gravest strategic threat we face is from nonstate actors—shadowy and elusive groups that simply do not generate targets that can readily be held at risk and whose members are frequently more than willing to sacrifice themselves in pursuit of their objectives. This makes such groups essentially invulnerable to retaliatory measures, and thus strategies based on deterrence are powerless to affect them. The challenge to deterrence is exemplified by al-Qaeda, which in 2001 proved both willing and able to attack the homeland of the world’s foremost military power, killing upwards of 3,000 people inthe process. In the wake of 9/11, the United States moved swiftly to smash al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Afghanistan and to topple the Taliban regime. But whilst this counteroffensive might conceivably have discouraged other states from extending help to bin Laden and his associates, it did not deter al-Qaeda itself from mounting further operations against the West, as the subsequent bombings in Madrid and London demonstrated. Indeed, military action could not hope to do so, because it could not threaten the idea of al-Qaeda. The events of 9/11 had already ensured that this idea was beamed around the world to lodge invisibly in receptive hearts and minds. And it is this idea that now represents the most important aspect of al- Qaeda; for even if bin Laden and his lieutenants were killed or captured tomorrow, the idea will survive, inspiring individuals 269

DETERRING NONSTATE ACTORS or small groups to commit suicidal acts of violence against the very societies in which they live. In what follows, I want to suggest that this line of argument is only partially correct. The Cold War model of punitive deterrence may not be relevant to the challenges posed by al-Qaeda, but this does not mean that deterrence per se is defunct. On the contrary, deterrence, in various guises, remains a potent tool for shaping al-Qaeda activity; indeed, it is helping to keep us safe as I speak today. By way of support for this position, I propose to explore two examples of deterrence at work. I make no special claims for these cases, which are two amongst many. They are, however, examples with which I happen to be familiar. Moreover, that there exists some modest evidence for their effectiveness also recommends their selection. As in most instances, it is notoriously difficult to demonstrate that an adversary’s inaction is due to a specific deterrent threat. Before we move on to discuss these examples, however, it might be useful to say a little bit more about the activities they are intended to deter. At root, al-Qaeda is a symptom of the Islamic world’s unhappy engagement with modernity. It is the extreme reaction of a traditional society that feels its fundamental beliefs and values are under siege by colonial forces. It harks back to a past in which Islam was more readily capable of asserting itself inthe face of such alien influences and indeed of prevailing over them. The key to regaining this past, it is argued, lies in a revolutionary political programme designed to create a geographical power base—a caliphate—within whose borders a radical interpretation of Islamic life can be practised. To the extent that obstacles to this project are encountered, force must be used to sweep them aside. These obstacles include the regimes that currently hold sway over the Middle East. They also include Western powers, such as the United States and Great Britain, who are charged with supporting the existing state structure as a means of maintaining their own anti-Islamic influence inthe region. A key problem facing al-Qaeda is that its capacity to generate force in relation to the states that oppose it is small, which means that direct confrontation would inevitably lead to crushing defeat. Direct confrontation is therefore avoided in favour of action intended—at least inthefirstinstance—to augment al-Qaeda’s 270